


A Panoramic View

by oxfordRoulette



Category: A Separate Peace - John Knowles
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, POV First Person, Sexual Content, Slut Shaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-20
Updated: 2012-12-20
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:22:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxfordRoulette/pseuds/oxfordRoulette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gene discovers his new neighbor has a rather interesting profession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Panoramic View

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DrWorm](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrWorm/gifts).



> Dear readers--  
> As this is the worst idea for an AU I will ever think of, please read this with a twinge of sarcasm and humor. If it helps any, please feel free to loop [this beauty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyS3weMlxLA) in the background.  
> Also, warning for some minor slut shaming.
> 
> Dear DrWorm--  
> Since I didn't get a prompt to go on, I tried to cater to some of the suggestions of the other three requests. I hope you enjoy it (I apologize in advance), and have a Merry Yuletide Season!

I moved to Sunrise Street in August about two years ago, due to a shifting in my employer's management hierarchy. It was a pretty little neighborhood, an old, elegant row of houses, nestled in the forested suburbs of New England. My block was originally constructed in the Victorian era, each house customized with tall spires, slanted roofs, thin pillars, and wooden frescoes carved to the tastes of whichever European lived there first. My house was rather modest compared to the others-- a small, two story structure painted like stained mahogany and plums, with a tower springing from the West side. 

The first floor consisted of a large living room, office, and kitchen, while the second floor had a bedroom, guest bedroom, and a few storage closets. My furniture was nothing unique. Beige chairs and couches I received from an ex-girlfriend’s grandmother circled a TV in the living room. The kitchen had ornate, white cupboards with paint peeling off the corners like flakes of rust, and a card table with a few chairs for eating. The fridge faced directly across from the entrance to the room, so I had to push the card table against the cupboards on the right-hand side in order to allow the fridge door to open fully. The two bedrooms were simple beds in whitewashed rooms, with no art on the walls. I had a lamp by my own bedside, with piles of books scattered around the floor in a fashion I would call organized. The office was the only room in the house I put thought into. Ceiling to floor shelves with books arranged by subject covered two walls, a window facing the street brought light in, and there was a desk with a laptop on the available wall. I didn't have a swivel chair in my office. Instead, I had a rather large, red armchair which was short and boxy, and acted more like a small couch.

The room in the tower was the bathroom, which had apparently been re-purposed as such by the previous owners. It had a panoramic window I enjoyed looking out of when brushing my teeth, and large shades to shut when I wanted to shower. This window did not match with the style of the rest of the house, as it was far too big and didn't have an intricate frame, leading me to believe the previous owners installed this as well. I had a clear view of the neighborhood, in particular the house across from mine.

This house was shaped like a giant barn, four stories tall, and had gaudy Greek columns dripping from the overhanging second story roof. It was painted entirely in pastels, the kind of washed out color you see in sun-faded Easter eggs. Like the rest of the suburbs, the house didn't have much of a yard, but there were three giant paper birch trees planted in front. One was on the East side, and two were paralleling a specific column of windows on the West side of the house. They were growing in such a way that no other houses on the block, nor anyone on the sidewalk, could see inside the large, third story window. However, that window happened to be directly blocking my bathroom window's view, so while brushing my teeth, I could not help but look into their house.

\-----

I met the man who lived there a week after I moved in. I was playing Angry Birds on the couch when he opened the door immediately after knocking.

“Hello new neighbor! Welcome to the neighborhood!” he waved at me. He was wearing a sweater vest, collared shirt, and tie with a pair of washed out blue jeans. He had slicked back, brown hair with sideburns that grazed the dreaded categorization of "muttonchop." He wore those circular spectacles yuppies two generations before ours are fond of. In short, the man was a total tool, and I had it in my mind to get him out of my house as soon as possible. “My name is Brinker, Brinker Hadley. But you can call me...” he winked. “Yellow Peril.”

I paused my game and walked to the entryway in an attempt to block him from the rest of my house. I was not fast enough. He turned toward the kitchen, holding an artistically sculpted jello mold. 

At the time, I had been going through somewhat of a crisis. The reason I took the job that required me to move from my stereotypical southern comfort zone was to get away from the undesirable feelings I was having during my last relationship. I thought that maybe, the change would spark in me something I thought was normalcy, something I wouldn’t have to face the abyss inside of myself to find. 

When Brinker bent to place the jello in my fridge, I looked into that void, and knew I could never get away. He had the nicest ass I had ever seen. His jeans were pulled taught over plump cheeks, pockets pointing to the sculpted end of his unique curves. His silhouette was a perfect, healthy roundness I had never before seen in my life. His ass shown like justice in the darkness of my icy self.

When he stood up, my vision was still pinned to the soft folds in the fabric surrounding the taught ass.

“What's your name, by the way?” he asked, turning towards me. “I came barreling in here, I didn't even think of asking.” He chuckled, staring directly at my lowered eyes.

I managed to shake myself from my fantasy in time to reply. “I'm Gene. Gene Forrester.” I shook his hand. It was slick and wet from the jello. Later, during terrible nights, I would think of this hand at night and start uncontrollably shuddering like I was drenched from the rain. 

“Why'd you move to Sunset Street, Gene? Got a dark past to run from?”

“Not quite, I had to transfer for my accounting job.”

Brinker stroked his chin while examining my face. “Yeah, you look like an accountant.”

I wasn't sure if that was a complement or not. I wanted to see if Brinker looked like his job. “What do you do, Mr. Hadley?”

“Yellow Peril,” he winked again. “I build windows. At least for my previous neighbors.” He pointed to my upstairs tower.

“Oh, I see.” I had no idea what to say at the time. Brinker did not look like someone who 'builds windows.' It was a few days later when I found out that, no, Brinker did not actually build windows, and yes, he did look like his actual job.

“Anyway, I have to head out, I have some doors to visit. I'm chairman of the board of the organization for Respectfully Developing Awareness for Underprivileged Local Children.”

“I've never heard of an organization like that.”

“I created it. Enjoy the jello I made. See you later, Gene!”

And thus, the express train who entered my house without warning left just as swiftly, leaving a hanging quietness I never knew I really appreciated. The jello in my fridge was flower shaped with a hole in the middle. It was red, white, and blue, for some reason. I didn't eat it.

\-----

By the second week of work, I had fallen into a routine of waking up an hour or two earlier than I needed to, spending a large amount of time on breakfast in an attempt to improve my dismal cooking skills, taking a shower, shaving, and brushing my teeth. As I stood in front of my panoramic window that morning, my toothbrush thrusting across my teeth, I noticed something odd about Brinker's house. Specifically, the scene going on inside that third floor window.

A chair that looked like it should be in a nice restaurant was set up parallel to the window-- with a unclothed man sitting in it. I came to a slow and difficult realization this was Brinker without his glasses. A painfully naked Asian woman with hair about a foot tall was bumping up and down on top of the man with extreme ferocity. 

When I saw the two cameramen, I ducked beneath the windowsill, sticking my head above the frame just slightly so I could analyze the scene further. I calculated that the cameras were never actually looking out the window, since they were angled in a way the light would not interfere with the film. I stood up again, watching with reluctant interest as the couple finished the shot. 

There was a brief shuffle as the woman started laughing and hopped away from Brinker, and a white woman, who I assume was the director, made a gesture meant for someone outside of my view. A young man about my age, a little bit tanner, a little bit taller, and a lot more beautiful than I handed the woman a coffee. He laughed with her as she pointed toward Brinker, who made a negative gesture. The beautiful man shrugged, his grin filling up every curve of his face, and walked over to Brinker. He trailed a finger down Brinker's chest, then disappeared in between Brinker's legs, the latter of whom appeared very uncomfortable with the situation.

I could not look away. I didn't even find it erotic, I was just so shocked with the fact my new neighbor was a porn star it consumed my thoughts. The young man made a thumbs up sign to the director, who ushered in the woman to resume filming. Brinker now looked upset to see the man leave, as the crew began the shot. Apparently, this would be the “climax” of the film. As Brinker's cum shot forth onto the face of the porn star, so too, did a gob of toothpaste drop from my open mouth onto my arm.

It was at that point I remembered I had work to get to, and hurriedly spit out the spent toothpaste and rushed to my bike.

\-----

Over the next few weeks, it became my morning ritual to watch the window of my neighbors house. I never actually found any of this arousing, it was more like a car accident news story I had to watch for fear of missing something dramatic. It never really distracted me from my activities, but once I cut myself shaving staring at the beautiful man instead of the mirror.

It was October when they finally caught me looking back. 

I was brushing my teeth. I was looking at the nape of the beautiful man's neck. He looked over his shoulder, caught my eye with extreme interest, and smiled. 

I hit the floor as fast as I could. I snaked over to the sink, spit out my toothpaste with as little of me peeking over the frame of the window as possible, and booked it out of the bathroom. I calmed down when I reached the main floor. I thought there was no reason the beautiful man would tell anyone in the house I was watching, nor would I ever have to see him again if I simply stopped being a voyeur. I prepared my bag for work, made sure my lunch was in order, and tried to subtly sneak out of the house. I started to unlock my bike from the post, but in my hurry, I didn't notice the tap on my shoulder.

“Heeeeeeey!”

I whipped around and found myself staring into eyes like emeralds. 

“I caught you staring,” the beautiful man said. He laughed then, deep and filled with genuine joy. “What's your name?”

I felt embarrassment rise up in my throat. “Don't you have work to be doing?”

“Nope! Just finished. Actually, we wont be filming here for a while anymore, gotta change venues to keep things interesting. My name's Finny. Just Finny. I'm a fluffer.” He held out his hand for me to shake. I looked at it suspiciously.

“Don't worry,” he said. “I always wash my hands! Gotta keep clean, you know, that's the number one rule.”

I shook his hand, then pulled my bike away from the post.

“Hey, where are you going, what's your name?”

“Work, I have to go to work.” I said.

“You going to keep biking to work like that in the winter?” he asked. He had a point, I was used to warm southern weather and I was already getting rather cold. 

“Yes.”

“Because, you know, we could carpool. I live pretty close, and if you work pretty close, I can just drop you off on the way to wherever you're going. It's the perfect crime.”

Driving in a skeesy car with a man who keeps porn stars aroused for a living? Possibly contracting some sort of venereal disease from the front seat? Possibly being kidnapped by someone I don't know at all? It was a terrible decision, one that only a stupid man would agree to.

But something in that same inner darkness Brinker's ass resides in forced me to say yes.

“Great!” said Finny. He placed his hand on my shoulder. His thumb was gently nestled in my collarbone, hanging there for a brief moment before Finny's upper lip twitched and he removed his hand. “I'll come get you, same time tomorrow?”

I nodded. “My name is Gene. Gene Forrester.”

“Bye, Gene!” He saluted me, and I watched him go back into the house before I mounted my bicycle.

\-----

I was almost sad when nothing happened outside my window the next morning. I remember a deep feeling of regret, one that I wasn't comfortable with exploring. Finny was waiting in a red mustang convertible, mirrored aviators perched on his wavy brown hair, and playing with the purple fuzzy dice hung over the mirror.

“You didn't tell me you had a convertible,” I said. “Are you going to put the top up?”

“Hell, no! You gotta feel the air in your lungs before work. It invigorates the body!” Finny inhaled and closed his eyes. “I read a book about karma or something that told me so. You should really check out karma, Gene. It does a body good.”

I got into the passengers side. I didn't see any white stains on the tan, pleather seats. “What's the point of you driving me to work if you're just going to keep the top down?”

“Interesting company?” He smiled. I didn't object.

My workplace was only a five minute drive away. I should have been shivering the whole way, but Finny told me a story about one time he got selected as an audience participant at a drag show. I was too distracted to be cold. I released silent puffs of laughter between my shouted instructions of how to get to work. When he dropped me off, I noticed his license plate said “FLUFFER.”

\-----

We became fast friends. Those five minute conversations meant more to me than hour long conversations with anyone else. There was something magical about Finny, something warm and innocent and full that drew you to him. In this town where I had no friends, Finny filled that social space up for me. We went out for lunch sometimes, lunches where Finny would tell me stories about whatever porn that got filmed, how bad the introduction was, what hilarious mishap happened, and I listened with utter fascination. 

Eventually, he put the top up. It had just started to snow when he picked me up.

“Hey, fucker! We're going to the beach today!” he yelled out the window. 

“The beach?” I said. “It's too cold to go to the beach. It just started snowing.”

“Isn't there some kind of like, ocean effect? That makes it warm?”

“No, it doesn't work like that.”

“Oh, well. I brought blankets!” He laughed then, like this was some great joke.

“I can't just call in sick to work.”

“Why not? It's a Friday! Use a sick day! You always go to work every damn day, you prude.”

In my string of bad decisions, I decided to go along with him. I called work in the car, telling them I threw up a few times this morning, as Finny nodded approvingly at my lie. It took an hour to get to the beach, but on the ride there we talked of family. Finny was the only child from well-to-do east coast parents-- parents that threw him to the streets when he got a boyfriend.

“I don't think I'm even gay or straight bi or whatever.” he said, his nails tapping against the wheel. “I don't really like labels. I'm just whatever I want to be. I think everybody's like that, you know? Just us. But try telling that to my parents. One look at the guy and, bam, out of the house.”

He blinked a few times, then looked over at me. I felt as though I should take his hand, or comfort him in some way, but I was too much of a coward to do anything.

“I don't think they're bad people at all,” he continued. “They'll come around one day, I can tell.”

We pulled into the few parking spaces on the beach. It wasn't terribly cold, as the wind was very slight. There were barely any waves crossing the length of the gray ocean. The sky was cloudy, the sand was clear, and the beach was empty.

We went for a walk, leaving footprints in the sand which were quickly stolen away by dark waves. We got lunch at the one pier area foodplace still open, eating gyros and licking the yogurt sauce off our fingers. We drew dicks and breasts in the sand and we laughed when the waves erased half of it. We walked more. We rested on the only bench in three miles. Finny prepared cold, fried fish sandwiches for dinner, and we ate them under three layers of fleece blankets. Finny's thigh was warm against me and my heart was ticking away like a bomb about to go off. 

We found an old row boat by the beach, a hole worn in the hull. We checked it for colonies of spiders but the cold had driven the bugs away. We propped it against a rock further away from the tide, and we placed blankets underneath. Finny wiggled himself under the hull. I followed. He lay on his back, staring out the hole in the boat and counting the stars. I copied his position, and lay like that as well. There were no stars in my view. I asked Finny how many he had counted.

“Just one,” he said.

In one swift movement, he swung to his side, folding his knees against mine and taking my hand with both of his. He pushed his chest against my shoulder, and angled his head in the crook of my neck. I could feel his heart resonating in the bones of my body. His lips brushed against the softness under my jaw. He whispered my name against my skin. Every muscle in my body tightened and I shook with warm anticipation. 

He flipped on top of me, his hands and legs interlocked in mine. His chest pressed against my own, but he wasn't so heavy as to stifle my breathing. He pressed his cheek against mine, tilting his head to bite my earlobe. I bucked my hips subconsciously, so much so that it startled both Finny and I. He raised his head, grinning from ear to ear. He parted his lips, at first pursing them together, then licking his softer lower lip. We were inches away, and I had never wanted to kiss a man so badly. I was not thinking of whatever sexuality I had, I was thinking of my beautiful Finny.

But then I thought of those lips around Brinker's cock, and I thought of those lips on every guy he's worked with, and I was filled with dark jealousy. 

“No,” I said. I turned my head away from his face, but it was not quick enough to see the look of soul crushing sadness that filled those green eyes. He slowly got off of me, hesitant and whining, like he was waiting for me to change my mind. I rolled onto my side, away from him.

“Gene, what's wrong?” he asked, whispering as though he would crush me if he was too loud. 

“I don't want to fuck you,” I said. “You're a whore. Why would I fuck a slut like you?”

“Gene,” he said. His hand neared the small of my back, but didn't touch me. “It's not like that. You know it.”

“Then why are you working as a prostitute, pretty much? I'm just another lay for you: 'Hey, I wonder if I can seduce that boring guy across the street' you said! Ha. Wow, what a laugh, you really managed to win that bet with yourself.”

“I didn't do anything like that. And you're not boring. You're interesting and I love you a lot.”

I thought that he said that to everyone, that 'l' word. “Can you even like someone with what you're doing? You're fucking whoring yourself out, like you don't have any shame.”

“It's okay to have fun with your job, Gene.”

I was angry at him. I grabbed my shoulders and tugged my knees to my chest. We rested like that for a while, but I never felt Finny's concerned gaze leave the back of my neck.

“Just, take me home.” I finally said.

We exited on opposite sides. He took the blankets, and I stared at the footprints we made an hour earlier. I followed him back to the car, my head down and shooting fire at the ground. I didn't look at his face even in the car, although I was aware that on the drive back, he would occasionally turn to me to see how I was doing. I watched the lights go by through the window. 

I thought about how Finny could enjoy his work. I wondered how somebody like him was allowed to love, with the rate at which he whored himself out. I wondered where his capacity for me was, and if I even meant something to him. I wasn't sure of my feelings for Finny, but I felt that in our brief friendship, he became a part of me and this realization broke my fragile heart.

We pulled up to my house. I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the door, my shoe landing in the snowy gutter.

“Hey, Gene,” said Finny. “I want you to know that I really think we have something here. And I'm willing to work towards that, so... if you want me to quit my job... then I will. Okay? Just let me know.”

I paused then, hanging on the edge of the seat. I turned to look at him, and his eyes were filled with a great innocence, something loving and caring and not at all what I was expecting. It was at that moment, I realized Finny was harboring something for me that was deeper and more beautiful than what I could have ever imagined, so I said the most spontaneous thing I have ever said in my life.

“Can we go inside and talk about it?”

Finny turned the car off and put it in park, then almost fell out of the vehicle with eagerness. I took out my keys and led him inside. I left him in the living room to go make tea for us, but when I came back he was in the office, sitting in the large armchair.

“You've got a lot of books.”

“No shit,” I said. I handed him some white oolong. I moved my laptop to the floor and sat on my desk, sipping the hot drink. It smelled sweet. “Finny, I want you to know that I'm... I'm jealous.”

Finny chugged his tea, making a motion that he burned his tongue. “How so?”

“What do you mean, how so? If we're going to start something, then I want to know... what it feels like to service other people. I guess, how can you not share some sort of bond with them?”

He stared at me with a raised eyebrow. “Well, it's a job. It's something physical. I don't love them. Not in the way I love you,” he said casually, like it was a statement everyone should know.

Finny was simple, and didn't see the corruption in anybody. He couldn’t see where this dynamic could go wrong, and I found myself trusting his every word. I believed him, and all worries about his feelings towards me vanished when I set my cup down. 

“Finny, I don't know what I'm doing.” I stated, then grabbed his chin and kissed him.

Finny immediately sighed into me, releasing the pressure on my lips I had pressed against him like he would slip away. He threw his arms around my waist, locking fingers in the small of my back and standing up. He pulled me off the desk, peppering my neck with little kisses, and sat me in the chair. 

He straddled me, his fingers tracing little spirals across my ribs. I grabbed his waist and moaned his name into his chest. I felt hopelessly incompetent. I had already completely lost my sense of self, focusing on the feeling of Finny's hands moving across my body. He pulled my shirt off, and went in for deeper kisses. He tasted like the ocean.

His hand slid down into my jeans, gently dancing around where I really wanted him to touch. I rolled my hips to try to nudge him in the right direction, but he just whispered a laugh onto my lips. I took off his shirt, regrettably moving his hand away, and pulled him closer so he was higher than I. I tried to kiss every inch of his chest, stopping to lick over sensitive nipples and pausing over his pelvic bones. He let out a quiet and satisfied noise every once in a while. 

I looked up at Finny, who smiled at me. He slid down my body, overlapping his arms with my thighs, and knelt on the ground between my legs. He undid my pants, carefully moving the zipper away, and bit his lip with excitement as he reached between the slit in my boxers. 

“Hey,” I said, realization dawning on me. “You've just been doing mostly everything and I haven't really— _awfuck_ ”

Finny brushed the tip with his lips, slowly working his way down and spiraling his tongue around me. He wrapped his hand around the lower half of me and began to work. I grabbed his hair, trying to exercise some self-control and not push him all the way down immediately. I pulled my muscles taught and started to shiver in the chair, my eyes locked on Finny. He was enjoying himself, making a show of his mouth, never falling into a regular beat I could ride to the end. 

I ran my fingers through his hair and he stopped, looking up with those wide eyes of his. He was smirking again, his upper lip pulled to the right.

“Wanna fuck me?”

I thought for a moment. I had never been with a man before, and I wanted to feel like Finny wasn't just putting on a show for me. I wanted us to both enjoy each others company. “Is there something you never get done to you? I want to do something special.”

Finny hesitated, then stood up. “I... don't really get to fuck anybody. So if I could... If that's okay.”

He wrung his hands, entwining his fingers and pressing his thumbs against his mouth. It was fucking adorable. I nodded. I didn't know I was grinning until he moved to kiss me. 

“I have lube in my coat pocket,” said Finny. “Hold on a sec.”

I wondered why the hell he just carried that stuff around with him, but I didn't get the chance to ask him when he returned. He kissed me as soon as he popped in the entryway, lifting my legs up so that he could slip off my remaining clothes. The speed at which he did this was impressive, I barely noticed they were gone. He took off his own clothes, then we re-situated so he was sitting under me and I was straddling him. I was close to his face, and we locked eyes. He pushed our noses together and made a 'boop' noise. I tried to stifle my laughter. 

“So how does this go?” I asked, as he began to warm up the lube, making sure to coat his fingers well.

“Just relax!” Finny said, reaching behind me. “This will be fun. Are you ready?”

I felt his finger slide in and my thighs tingled with shock. I wasn't sure if I liked the sensation, but it was warm and new and I would get used to it if it was for Finny. I grabbed at the arms of the chair, twisting my body so that he would go deeper. I let out a moan at the second finger, arching my back and tensing my legs. 

He removed them and handed me the bottle of lube. I only had a vague idea what to do with it, so I squirted a bit into my palm. Finny laughed.

“We're going to need more than that.”

I let more drip out into my hand, rubbing my palms together and sliding them around his erection. He watched me with interest, looking into my eyes occasionally to check if I was enjoying myself. I was. 

When I was done, he grabbed my shoulders and pulled me into a desperate kiss. I bit his lower lip and I felt his hips roll in retaliation. He asked if I was ready and I agreed. When we got situated, he made a motion for me to lower down. Finny pushed into me, and my knees began to shake with pain. It felt like needles were shooting into my veins. I gasped with severity. Finny froze in the horror of hurting me.

“Oh Jesus, Gene, I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you. We should stop, we can switch places or do something else.”

I took a few deep breaths. “Just-- Just give me a minute. I want to keep going.” I focused on Finny instead of my own pain, how his hands were gently wrapped around my waist and how his lips looked in the light from the streetlamps outside.

I smiled at him and pushed down all the way. He sighed, a sound full and round, and we stayed like this for a while, enjoying the sense of completeness. Finny checked my facial expressions with care as he began to move. With every slow lunge of his hips I could feel a wave of warmth washing over me. He asked if he was going slow enough and I ached for him to go faster, so I tried to move with him. He started to build up a rhythm, whispering my name as he thrusted harder. I grabbed his shoulder with my left arm, enjoying the feeling that was washing over me. I started to jerk myself off in time with Finny, my knuckles rubbing against his abdomen. I was hoping I wouldn’t leave a bruise on him. It wasn't long before Finny pulled me into a harsh kiss, climax rolling through his body and shaking up into my own bones. I felt warmth spreading through me, and it was only moments later that my own world imploded.

\-----

Finny was absentmindedly flipping through one of my novels scattered across my bedroom floor. I watched the rotation of his hand as he grabbed for the next page, graceful and calculated like the rest of his movements. His wrist was bony, tapering down like flowing silk to align with his perfect hands. 

“Why are you staring at my arm?” said Finny. I shifted in bed, propping up my head on the pillow. 

“It's nice,” I said.

“These wrists carried you up the stairs and into your bed and all you have to say is they're 'nice?'” Finny laughed. His voice resonated in my heart.

I threw the comforter over him and he tossed the book aside. He wrapped his arm around my back and pulled me into his embrace.

“Finny, I don't think you should quit your job,” I said. “I think we can figure this out.”

“Figure what out?” he asked, ruffling my hair. “Are you still jealous?”

I always seem to forget that he and I are on different wavelengths. Finny has no capacity for jealousy. I think I can learn to grow and accept what he does, but should he place that same trust in me? Should someone as screwed up as I deserve love from him?

“You look broody,” said Finny, twirling some of my hair. “Cheer up, I love you!”

I was about to voice my thoughts, my self-depreciating musings, but I remembered that we were a part of each other, something that few people ever had, and something that I've never felt before. I love my fluffer. So I thought to myself that I could manage, and that we could fight on and sustain a relationship with our vastly different career choices and life experiences. I told him that we would make it.

And we did.


End file.
